The art project Digital Balke - Divine NorthAn electronic exhibition of the works of Peder Balke
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In the summer of 2014, Northern Norway Art Museum presented an exhibition of the works of Peder Balke (1804-1887), one of Norway’s most prominent 19th Century Romantic landscape artists. The exhibition was a collaboration with London’s National Gallery, where it is on display until April 2015.

As Northern Norway Art ­Museum is also responsible for the communication and distribution of art in the three northernmost counties of Norway, but is not always – as in this case – able to arrange for original works to travel, curator Lise Dahl devised an electronic display of Balke. Digital Balke/Divine North is a triple video projection, which takes the viewer on a journey through a selection of Balke’s paintings, accompanied by an electronic sound work by composer Gaute Barlindhaug.

Facts:

Peder Balke (1804-1887) was born on Helgøya Island in Lake Mjøsa. He was originally trained and worked as a craftsman painter, but had some art training in Christiania (Oslo) and Stockholm. He was a pupil of J.C. Dahl in Dresden, where he also became familiar with the Romantic paintings of Caspar David Friedrich.
During the last half of his career he fell out with the Christiania art establishment because of his involvement in the early labour movement as well as because of his experimental painting.
After his death Balke has been recognised as one of the most visionary landscape paintings of 19th Century Norway, with a technique and an understanding of landscape that borders on the modern.

The exhibition Peder Balke is on display at the National Gallery in London from 12th November 2014 until 12th April 2015.